Another kit that got away

This is my painting of the Fairey Rotodyne, which was another well known Airfix kit that I never owned and I wish that I had built back in the day, like the SRN4 Hovercraft, the Type B Bus and the Short Skyvan. 

Was it a helicopter? Was it an autogyro? Was it an airplane? Well, actually it was none of these. The official description of it is that it was a compound gyroplane, and it was just one example of a number of what-might’ve-beens of post war British Civil Aviation.

The rotors were powered by tip jets – literally jets on the tips of the rotors – which would be used during take off and landing. During level flight the rotors ran free, like the rotors of an autogyro, and the machine was powered by the engines mounted on the stubby wings.

On paper, this certainly looked like a good idea and the one prototype that was built performed well in trials which began in 1957. But there were concerns about the noise generated by the rotors and firm orders from commercial airlines failed to materialise. The project had been funded by the British Government and they ended this in 1962. The prototype was dismantled, although pieces of it are on display in the helicopter museum.

I painted this using my new Daler-Rowney watercolour set.